Uncorked Ontario

Nice video on tying vines @ Henry of Pelham Family Estates.

If you can see through a red wine, it’s generally ready to drink.

The best way to get an idea of a wine’s color is to get a white background & hold the glass on an angle in front of it.

Pinot Noir is usually less tannic than Cabernet & matures more quickly, generally in two to five years.

Pinot Noir is temperamental. high maintenance, expensive, & difficult to grow and make into wine.

Walking into your loacal LCBO, seeing his nice display of wines called “Cellared In Canada” you would think that you are buying Canadian wine. You have just been fooled. Cellared In Canada wines can (and often are) made from 70% foreign grapes.

Want to buy real Canadian wines? At the LCBO the only way to do this is to look for VQA on the label.

If you have a Facebook account you really should jion the “Boycott Cellared In Canada wines” group. Here is a link to this group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=119899540133

One interesting message posted in the facebook roup was from Richard Karlo who explained the wine content act.

Here is a copy of his post:

To bring a little clarity into how we got to the current situation here is a little history on the wine content act.

Until 1972 all wine produced in Ontario was 100% locally grown. The wine content act was changed to increase blending in response to majority of grapes being pulled out (lambrusca) and replanted with fine wine grapes.

This was a long time ago when there was a shortage of the better varieties. This shortage no longer exists.

In 1972 wineries were allowed to blend up to 25% foreign content, into their wines.

In 1980, the wine content regulations were changed to allow wineries to blend up to 30% imported product in any one bottle of wine. This was done to supplement a perceived shortage of premium grapes.

In 1989, the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, and the wine content act was changed to allow wineries to blend up to 70% imported product.

Why was this done? Under the grape adjustment program, grape growers pulled out 8,200 acres of grapes so they could replace them with higher quality vinifera. The wineries, at that time, insisted there were not enough domestic grapes planted to fulfill market requirements.

This Act was supposed to end Dec. 31/2000

After a number of changes throughout the years, in January 2001, the wine content act was changed to allow a minimum of 30% Ontario-grown product and a maximum of 70% imported product in the “Cellared in”category.

There is no crop shortage to justify allowing so much foreign content in our wine. The industry growers are facing crop surpluses because the government supports sales and marketing of blended wine through the LCBO.

This situation has nothing to do with the problems at 20 Bees. That is a convenient scape goat for those who want to deflect attention from the real issues.

Gary

Good Morning…

I was wondering if you could help me…

I live in Kingsville, and enjoy dry white wine.. but have recently discovered that I have an allergy to Oaked wines and ones that contain Sulphate..

I tend to enjoy, Pelee wines, Erie Shores, and Mastonardi wines..

Do you have any suggestions on which dry white wines do not contain either oak or sulphate..

Thanks
Sincerely

R. K.

So, you have been invited to your very first wine tasting party. You know that this is fun and it is a great way to show off your palate. But, what if you don’t know anything about wine tasting? What if you don’t know the proper way to taste wine? Surely you wouldn’t want to be embarrassed in front of your friends as well as the host of the party tasting the wine the wrong way, would you?

So, here are some simple guides on how to taste wine.

You need to remember that wine tasting is a great experience. Most people do it in their own way but most people don’t really know how to taste wine. Tasting wine is not just about having something other than water in your mouth, but tasting wine is about knowing the wine.

You have to remember that wine has a unique taste. It has a very complex and very rich taste that you need to fully taste. Wine tasting is not just about putting the wine in your mouth and swirling it around inside your mouth, but it takes some time in order for you to identify the wine and get its true flavor. That’s the essence of wine tasting, which is getting the true flavor of the wine you taste.

Each wine isn’t the same when it comes to flavor. The age of the wine will have an effect on the taste, which is why the older it is, the more expensive the wine is.

You also need to remember that the taste and quality of the wine will also depend on the quality of the raw products, which are grapes. The soil in each region is different with different amounts of minerals, and the amount of rainfall is also different on each region. This will also contribute to the taste of the wine.

Unlike other foods, the simplest difference in the taste of a grape will have a lot of difference in the taste of the final product which is wine.

Also, because each process of making wine is different in each region of the world, it will also contribute on the taste of the wine.

The point of all this is that you should take some time in tasting and smelling the wine. Don’t just swirl it in your mouth and spit it out but you need to truly capture the flavor by seeing it first, then smelling it, and lastly, tasting it.

Try tasting as much wine as you can and washing your mouth off with room temperature water or unsalted biscuits to get the previous wine flavor off your mouth.

By tasting as much wine as you can, then you will be able to improve your palate and be able to know which type of wine suits your taste buds. Also, you will be able to gain experience in wine tasting so that the next time you get invited to another wine tasting party or you go on a wine tasting holiday in some of the most prominent vineyards in the world, you will be able to know and impress people on how knowledgeable you are with wines.

These are some of the things that you have to know about wine tasting. As you can see, it’s not just about having something other than water in your mouth, but it’s about truly capturing and identifying the complex flavor of wine.

Gary